There is a kind of love song that does not beg. It does not flatten you into someone smaller. It looks at you and asks you to stand up straighter. Ana Golja’s new single “Better” lives in that space. Tagged Commercial and written as soulful, vulnerable pop with vintage warmth, it sits at the crossroads she named herself: Amy Winehouse meeting Olivia Dean’s “Dive.” Soft enough to feel private. Strong enough to play on the radio.
Golja is a Toronto singer-songwriter with Albanian roots and a lifelong soul obsession. She started performing at 11 in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, then Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Sound of Music, and trained in classical voice and piano at The Royal Conservatory. By 16 she was writing her own songs, chasing the ache she heard in Winehouse, Etta James, and Nina Simone. Her first release, “Epilogue,” arrived in 2018, followed by “Strive” in 2021. Four years ago she left her management and rebuilt with a small team in London. Acting is still part of her story — Degrassi, Full Out, producing and starring in The Cuban — but she says this music is the truest thing she has to give right now. New singles began in summer 2026. “Better” was written and recorded in London with her producers.
The song is about the person who makes you want to become your best self. Not the crush that asks you to hide. The rare one that holds up a mirror. The verses stay tender. She sings about awakening a part of herself she had never seen, about trading time for peace of mind and only finding it after meeting someone. Then the chorus opens up: “Make me wanna be better.” The hook is simple on purpose. It is the kind of line you can sing in a kitchen and still hear on a playlist. The middle of the song gets more specific without getting messy. Healing is not pretty. She draws lines in the sand. She paints the picture of who she has always been. There are no promises and no guarantees, only the feeling of being more alive with that person next to her.
That mix of intimacy and lift is why this lane is working in 2026. Soft, textured soul-pop is finding space next to harder dance records because listeners still want voices that sound like they have lived something. Golja’s pitch is clear: if you like voices with real texture and songwriting that does not hide behind production, this one is for you. The production stays warm instead of glossy-for-its-own-sake. The chorus is radio-ready without sanding off the vulnerability that makes the verses land.
Independent artists taking their stories back is not a slogan here. It is the actual path she chose. Leaving management, building a London team from scratch, and treating the songs as therapy is a familiar 2020s story, but it only works if the writing holds. “Better” holds. It does not pretend the relationship is a fairy tale. It just says the right person can make you see yourself more clearly.
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What do you think of Ana Golja’s sound on “Better”? Does that Winehouse-to-Olivia-Dean lane hit for you? Let me know in the comments.
